BirdCage
by HanaToZoYuki
Summary: takes place in the middle of the first Pete episode in season 8. what might have happened if Lister and Rimmer were stuck in the Hole prison cell for longer?


BirdCage 

Author's Note:  
this takes place in season 8, the first "Pete" episode, when Lister and Rimmer have been thrown into the "Hole".

in the original, they are only in this cell for a few minutes before they get out. but what would have happened if they were stuck there for a bit longer...?

i don't own Red Dwarf or its characters. this is merely an expression of a fan's appreciation.

**BirdCage**

by Li Izumi  
...

smeghead! What did you go and shake his hand for?"

"I'm sorry, Listy. It was a complete accident!"

Lister ignored Rimmer and flopped down on the ground against one of the walls, glancing around at what would be their room for the next two months. It was small, dark, and dank. There wasn't even a bunk to sleep on—just a couple of mats on the floor. Lister cursed the nanobots in their insistence on recreating everything... including the fleas on the course blankets.

"And what the smeg are we supposed to do for the next two months in here?" Lister growled. Annoyance permeated his entire being. It wasn't bad enough that they were already sentenced to the general brig for two years. No, now Rimmer had to go and get them in deeper trouble with the captain and get them sent to the Hole for two months. Granted, he had been the one who had the idea to use the potato virus in the first place, but they wouldn't have gotten in so much trouble if that smeghead hadn't shook the captain's hand and passed on the clothing-eating bugs.

The two sat in silence for a while, each lost in their own thoughts. After some time passed, Lister sighed heavily. It made little point in being annoyed at Rimmer. True, it did feel a little good to blame their imprisonment on his roommate, but it wouldn't get them out any faster and it didn't really do anything constructive. Besides, he didn't feel like getting into a heated roe with Rimmer. While it would be something to do, it wasn't a lot of fun to be stuck in the room with the smeghead, where neither could leave to cool off.

"So what are we going to do for the next two months," Lister repeated his earlier query.

Rimmer started slightly at the sound of Lister's voice. "Ah, what?" It took a moment for Lister's words to penetrate. "Oh. What to do?" He looked up as he seemed to consider the question. At last he suggested, "I suppose we could tell each other stories about ourselves or something. That's sure to pass some time."

"Stories about ourselves?" Lister rolled his eyes. "I already know everything about you."

Lister had spent several years alone with Rimmer on the Red Dwarf. With only themselves for company (with the occasional interruption of Cat), they had told each other all about their lives long before.

"Don't be ridiculous," Rimmer scoffed. "You don't know everything about me." He thought for a moment. "Like, you don't know about my first kiss. Ah, Susan Crawford. She had been crazy about me... absolutely head over heels..."

"I thought your first kiss was with you uncle. He mistook your room for your mum's."

"...! What! How could you know about that! I mean..." Rimmer tried too late to restore his arrogant facade. "Don't be ridiculous..."

Lister rolled his eyes. "You told me."

"I would never!"

"You did," Lister insisted. "Well, the other you did."

"Other me?"

"The hologram Rimmer."

"Oh. Him." Rimmer looked disgusted.

Rimmer hadn't seemed pleased to hear about how Lister had spent 6 years living alone on the Red Dwarf with Rimmer's hologram when Lister had told him about it. Lister couldn't entirely blame him. It had been his experience that Rimmer's tended to dislike one another.

"Anyway, I already told you about my first kiss. Well, I told the other you, but it's your fault for not being the other you."

"How is that my fault!"

Lister shook his head. He was being a bit unreasonable. He couldn't really say why he was being a git about it. He just was. It was strange. Rimmer was Rimmer no matter what variant he was, but even so. This wasn't his Rimmer. This wasn't the one Lister had spent 6 years with. It seemed strange to say he missed Rimmer when Rimmer was right in front of him. But Lister had had 6 years of experiences with Rimmer that this Rimmer knew nothing about. Still, it wasn't really fair to blame that on the Rimmer in front of him now.

"Alright. I'll tell ya about one of my first kisses. It wasn't the first, but it's kinda an interesting story," Lister said. "So a bunch of me mates and me were trying to get the bed out of the nearby hotel room and..."

"Bed!" Rimmer interrupted shocked. "People steal towels from hotels, Lister, not beds!"

Hadn't he told Rimmer about that? Right, he had told the holo-Rimmer, back when they had gotten sucked into that weird justice zone. "It's a long story ok? I was renting a flat that wasn't furnished. I did some stuff I wasn't proud of, but all me mates were doing it. Anyway, we got caught by security. So we all split up. I wound up running into this old warehouse with Kelly Crane. She was a couple years older than me. Had these great tits." Lister moved his hands in front of his own chest to demonstrate. "Normally, she wouldn't have given me the time of day. She was the girl of one of me mates' mates. Totally out of my league. But when our group got separated, the two of us wound up hiding together. Anyway, the guard followed us into the building. Kelly was completely panicking, and I couldn't get her to quiet down. So I kissed her."

"You kissed her? And that actually worked?"

"Like a charm," Lister grinned.

"Huh," Rimmer said and shook his head in disbelief.

Silence descended over the duo again. "So now what," Lister spoke up after a while.

Rimmer considered. "Well, I could tell you all about my risk game with..."

"I don't want to hear about it!"

"But it's really quite exciting!" Rimmer insisted. "You see..."

Ignoring Lister's obvious disinterest, Rimmer paced around the room as he went on in excruciating detail about his game. Eventually, Lister just tuned him out his droning, letting his mind wander.

Hours passed. Lister gazed blankly at the wall. He had counted all the cracks twelve times already. He started counting them again.

"And then I rolled double sixes, which was exactly what I needed!" Rimmer said, his voice quite animated despite the incredible dullness of his subject to all but him. "And that's how I won. Wasn't that exciting, Listy?"

Lister dumbly nodded, still staring forward at the cracks in the wall. Rimmer had settled onto his mat, a half smile on his face as he continued to relive his Risk adventures in his head.

Lister thought he would have been happy that Rimmer had finally shut up, but soon he found that the silence was deafening.

It was just him, the cracks, and Rimmer in the cool, dark cell. The very small, dark cell.

The very, very small, cramped, dark cell.

The walls were closing in. He couldn't breath. The darkness was choking him. The silence was smothering him. Lister began to shake.

Rimmer's meditations on his past Risk glories were interrupted when he noticed something shaking out of the corner of his eye. He looked over to see Lister curled up tightly.

"Listy? What's wrong?"

"I don't feel so good, man. The walls... They're closing in... I can't breath..."

"The walls? They're perfectly fine. What on earth are you blabbering abo... Oh. Oh, I see. You're claustrophobic."

"So what if I am?"

"I never knew you were claustrophobic. Why didn't you ever say something?" He grimaced slightly. "Or did you tell HIM about it?"

Lister shook his head. "I didn't tell the other Rimmer either. It's not something I like to talk about. Besides, you'd have just laughed at me."

"Why Lister, I would never!" Rimmer seemed to relax for a moment after Lister admitted that the other Rimmer didn't know either. Then his haughty attitude returned and he said with a smug grin. "You're right. I will!"

Lister shook harder. He began twitching even. Rimmer watched him with a gleeful smirk for several minutes before even he seemed to tire of watching Lister suffer.

"So when will you stop?"

"I don't know, Rimmer," Lister said exasperated. "I can't control it. I can't just make it stop whenever I want."

"But we're stuck here for the next two months!"

"You're not helping Rimmer!" Lister shouted, shaking even harder. Tears formed in his eyes. He was starting to rock.

"I'm sorry! I'm not very good at this kind of thing," Rimmer explained flustered.

"I can't take it anymore!"

"How can I stop your panicking?"

"I don't know! Do something!"

Rimmer thought desperately to figure out some way to help Lister, who was now moaning and shaking even harder.

As Lister's condition worsened, Rimmer found his own anxiety level increasing. He had to find some way to stop Lister from panicking.

Suddenly, Rimmer leaned forward and kissed Lister deeply.

The kiss lasted several moments before Lister pulled roughly away.

"What the smeg was that for!"

"I don't know!" Rimmer shouted flustered. "I didn't know how else to stop you from panicking! I panicked!"

"That was disgusting!"

"You're telling me?" Rimmer said horrified. "I don't know where your mouth has been lately." He shuddered. "I don't even want to know!"

Lister continued to groan and tried to wipe his tongue.

After several minutes passed, each trying to recover from the ordeal, Rimmer spoke in his falsely chipper smug tone. "Well, at least I stopped you from panicking."

Lister glanced back at him. Then he sighed. "You've changed."

"Pardon?"

"You're not the Rimmer I knew. Well, the Rimmer I spent the last six years with wasn't the real Rimmer either. He was a hologram, a computer program based on the original Rimmer's thoughts and personality. But we spent six years together. Six years you don't know anything about. You aren't that Rimmer. You are the real Rimmer, brought back to life by the nanobots. But you've changed from how I remembered you on the Red Dwarf all those millions of years ago. I mean, the past few days you've joined me on four pranks on Acherman."

Rimmer grimace deepened at the mention of the warden's name. "He's such a git."

"See, that's the kind of thing I mean."

Rimmer was quiet for a moment. "I don't know, Listy. I guess it's because I've realized I don't have anything to loose anymore. I'm in the brig for two years. With that on my record, I'll never be promoted to officer. At this point, all I can say is just 'smeg it'. But don't get me wrong. I'd totally lie, cheat, blackmail, suck-up, and betray you and everyone else if I thought it would get me ahead."

Lister rolled his eyes. "On second thought. You haven't changed at all. You're a complete smeghead."

...

Little Rimmer curled up as small as he could, trying to stifle his sobs so he wouldn't wake his older brothers. Everything was going so wrong. Why didn't he ever get a break?

A pillow hit him upside his head.

"Stop your sniffling, Bonehead!" Frank snapped.

Why couldn't they see that little Rimmer just wanted a hug? A gentle touch, just to know someone was there, that someone cared? Was that too much to ask?

Even his own mother couldn't be bothered with him.

Rimmer's eyes fluttered open. He hated such dreams. They always broke down all the defenses that he'd carefully built up, the arrogance he had honed to perfection.

He could still hear the echo of the quiet sobs of his childhood self.

Wait. He was awake. So who was crying?

"Lister?" Rimmer whispered. The sobbing stopped. Ah, Rimmer thought to himself. That was it. "Listy, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. I couldn't sleep well." Lister's voice was tight. "With all your snoring."

Rimmer ignored the jab. "It's the claustrophobia again, isn't it?"

"What is?" Lister's voice wavered.

"Why you're crying."

"Crying? I'm not crying."

"Lister, you're not fooling anyone."

"I don't cry, man."

Rimmer rolled his eyes. Fine, if he was going to be like that... Rimmer rolled over to go back to sleep. But as soon as he closed his eyes, he kept picturing his childhood self, crying, wishing for a simple pat on the head just to know he wasn't alone.

Damn it.

Rimmer sat up and slid across the floor so he was sitting next to Lister. He reached out hesitantly and slid his arm around the shivering young man, pulling him close.

"What are you doing?" Lister's voice was quiet, and lacked the usual bite the question would normally have. It was yet another sign of how unwell the darkened cell was making Lister feel.

"Shhh," Rimmer hushed.

He must be mad. Why was he comforting this obnoxious, sloppy man? And yet there was just something about Lister's innocent tear-filled eyes that made Rimmer recall those nights of his youth when the loneliness overwhelmed him.

Lister shook slightly as he tried to keep back his tears. This was nuts. Why the hell was he sitting in the arms of that annoying smeghead? And yet there was such warmth in those arms, that before he quite knew what he was doing, Lister found himself wrapping his own arms around Rimmer and pulling himself into a tighter embrace.

As time passed, Lister's shakes slowly subsided, but the two men stayed in the embrace, gently dozing off in each other's arms.

It was early in the morning when a loud scrapping noise disturbed their slumber.

"What's this Pete?" A strange old voice asked. "It looks like we have guests in the cell next door. Let's go say hello, Pete."

Rimmer and Lister's eyes fluttered open, and then flew wide open when they realized how close their faces were to each other. Roughly they pushed away, trying to get as far apart, as quickly as they could, while avoiding looking at the other.

The strange old man crawled into the cell through a loosened grate against the far wall.

"Um, hello," Lister said uncertainly. "Who are you?"

"They call me 'Bird Man'."

"Oh aye, why's that?"

Rimmer rolled his eyes. "Because he really likes instant custard--why do you think?"

The Bird Man held up his knotted hand where a small sparrow lay cupped in his palm. "This is Pete. He's nine years old, which in sparrow years is..." He paused to consider. "Nine years old," He said at last. "So that makes him..."

"...Nine?" Rimmer ventured a guess.

"Nine, that's right. You met him before, have you?" Bird Man asked excitedly.

Rimmer slummed down, his head in his hands. "Two months of this, God."

They were interrupted again, as another hole suddenly appeared in the cell. This time, it was from the Skutter Bob, who was carving out an escape path in the prison's ceiling.

As they left the cell, Lister pulled Rimmer towards him. "Not one word about last night to anyone," He hissed in Rimmer's ear.

"Trust me, I wouldn't tell a soul." Rimmer shivered. More to himself, Rimmer continued. "I don't know what got into me. I must have been mad. Do you think it was some sort of odd reaction to the potato virus?"

Lister rolled his eyes and laughed. "You really are a smeghead."

...

author's notes: we learn about Lister's claustrophobia in season 7, Rimmer's first kiss is talked about in one of the middle seasons (i've been told it was season 3 "last Day"). Lister did indeed steal not just the bed, but the entire room from a hotel, as stated in "Justice". However, the kiss story that Lister told was totally invented by me, but it sounds like something he would have done.

i think my motivation when i first wrote this was i kinda wanted to see another Lister-Rimmer kiss, so i created a situation where that might actually have happened.


End file.
